ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Happy New Years, everybody. And while I’m here, happy birthday, Joon, today’s co-author of today’s Themeless Monday. Hope you enjoy it.
Today’s post was going to be a review of how I did on my resolutions for 2010, but there’s really not much to report. All the puzzle-related resolutions were held up. All the non-puzzle-related resolutions went “pfffbt.” For those keeping score, I read zero of those books I keep pretending I’m going to read, played zero games of bridge, baked zero loaves of bread, and lost only seven pounds. Okay, the bread one is a year too early as I’ve already made one loaf this year. The moral is: No resolutions are to be made this year.
Three more announcementes:
New Visual Thesaurus puzzle went up this past weekend. Get it here.
I will be doing another adult ed class in Camrbidge starting next week. Click here to sign up.
Finally, this is the last week for anybody who wishes to get that bonus 21×21 themeless puzzle. The file is being deleted on Friday, so act now and tip at least $10 if you still want it.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
I really loved both clue and answer for 42-down. But I got caught on the last letter to the two names that cross at 31-A and 29-D. I put “M” in there hoping the actor might be Herbert Lom and that just maybe there might be a hockey player named “Odam.” Nice one, BEQ & Joon. Thanks.
Good puzzle. Couldn’t see OZONE HOLE and couldn’t get all the crosses, so finished with incorrect squares with incorrect letters where Z-O-N-E should have been.
Can someone explain “ONEO cat” to me?
One o’cat is a shortened form of “one old cat” which is some ancestor of baseball.
Re 62a, I think the best rack would include 2 blank tiles. Clue should end with “that includes no blank tiles”
Loved the “slack?” clue.
Hand up for DNF the SE. TOUGH clue for DOGOODERS and OZONEHOLE wasn’t going to come without the Z, and, um, that clue was a wee tad bit obscure for me.
I was going to say that the LOY/ODAY cross was Very Unfair, but then I guessed right so it turned out not to be unfair after all.
Can someone explain 62A, both the clue and the answer? I play scrabble very occasionally and don’t know what ‘bingoing’ means… (Wait, is that a term for putting down all your letters? In which case, is there some mathematical proof that STAINER is the best set to have?)
One “proof” that STAINER is the best set goes like this:
1. Write each seven letter word from the official Scrabble dictionary on a line and write the sorted letters of the word after it. E.G. cluster celrstu
2. Sort the resulting list by the second column (the sorted letters)
3. Partition the sorted list based on the value of the second column. If the AEINRST partition is the largest partition, then 62A is true.
This considers only 7 letter words. One could combine a rack with existing letters on the board to create an 8 letter word or longer, so for each word length there may be a different best set. The algorithm for that is left as an exercise for the reader.
BTW, I was playing Scrabble the other day and
had this opening
*R_ _ _ _ _ *
Where the *’s represent triple word squares
My rack was
CEMATMD
If second M had been an E I could have played
CREMATED for 209 points. From doing BEQ puzzles, it occurred that turning the M on its side would make it look like an E. Unfortunately doing something like that in a crossword is okay but it is problematic in Scrabble. That’s one reason why I like crosswords better.
@ Bob Blake: Had the same damned mistake on my last fill. I just started going through the alphabet, and stopped when I got to LOM. Forgot all about Myrna Loy. Also, the clue for ODAY refers to a pitcher for the Texas Rangers baseball team, not the Rangers hockey team.
Had to use plenty of crosses, but did finish. Only other mistake was 53A crossing 41D. Wanted GUIDO at 53A but wanted NEOCENE more at 41D. I learned something.
@ r.alphbunker: Thanks for the clarification on STAINER. I didn’t have a clue about that, but figured it was something similar to your explanation. Also, you are correct about One-O-Cat. It’s basically stick-ball, ( usually a broom handle and tennis ball ) played in the street with virtual bases. No teams, every man for himself.
Confidently put in “Luigi” for the forklift, having seen Cars about a billion times.
Felt good about “Luigi” when Pant=Trouser.
But SONIC YOUTH has to be right…and, come to think of it, REUNIFING makes no sense for several different reasons…
Mamma mia!!
Thanks! Although in my experience, ‘bingoing’ is as often as not accomplished by making an 8-letter word, in which case it all depends what other letter you’re building on…
that’s right. from what i can recall, STAINER (or ANTSIER, NASTIER, RETINAS, RETSINA, etc.) is the “best” rack because STAINER+[another letter] forms the most 8-letter bingos.
Didn’t know one o’cat, but (eventually) got it from 33D. Took longer than it should have, and I looked up 38A to make sure my guess was right since I haven’t played that game.
I was looking for a downloadable list of valid Scrabble(tm) words a while back, but couldn’t find one that wasn’t wrapped in some useless program. Did I miss it somewhere?
It’s been a while since I played, but I always remembered it as RETAINS — all else being equal (or even if doing otherwise will get you a few more points), you want to retain those letters on your rack to help you with bingos. There’s a massive list online somewhere of all the RETAINS bingos, but I can’t seem to find it. Here’s the RETAIN list, though: http://www.scrabblestop.com/bingos-with-retains-and-blank.html
Nice work. Felt easier than the usual BEQ Monday, but I can’t put my finger on why.
This one’s a candidate for Comment of the Year.
Didn’t know LOY or BAAL, so a dnf for me. I would’ve thought BAAS and SOY would be better, but maybe I’m alone in not being strong in deities or old actresses